


calamitous love and insurmountable grief

by meliebee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Hermione Granger, Canon Compliant, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, Desi Harry Potter, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, Harry Potter Has PTSD, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Harry and Hermione are always POC in my fics, Healing, Hermione Granger Has PTSD, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Protective Weasley Family (Harry Potter), Ron Weasley Has PTSD, The Golden Trio, Touch-Starved, he also GETS hugs because we deserve that, literally every character is here lol, softly implied poly golden trio, tags updated as the story is!, y'all ever get sad about the golden trio's trust issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27797953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliebee/pseuds/meliebee
Summary: a series of Harry Potter ficlets, largely with themes of golden trio friendship, trauma's effects and recovery, canon divergence and canon introspection.chapter one: AU where Harry’s magic never stopped keeping Petunia from cutting his hair. (years 1 to 7, gen, 3k words.)chapter two: Different paths for Harry in romance. (post-canon, Harry/Ginny + Harry/Neville +poly golden trio, 900 words.)chapter three: Think, for a moment, of Harry, Hermione, Ron. They were only children when it all began, so young when they learned self-reliance. (unspecified year, gen, 1k words.)chapter four: The thing about Harry and touch is that there's a thing about Harry and touch. (years 1 to 7, gen or poly, 2.9k words.)chapter five: Harry leaves Britain after the War, and learns how to live for the first time. (post-canon, implied Harry/Ginny, 5k words)
Relationships: Harry Potter & Weasley Family, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom/Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Harry Potter
Comments: 39
Kudos: 261





	1. cutting me open, then healing me fine

**Author's Note:**

> imagine me writing Harry Potter fanfic in 2020, YEARS after reading the books for the first time, for no reason whatsoever. clown behaviour. this is gonna be a collection of different short stories, of varying length (and quality), so feel free to leave requests! anyways I don't know why I'm suddenly consumed with the need to write HP fic but lemme make it clear that in this house Daniel Radcliffe wrote the books <3 and everyone is safe and welcome. the title is from folklore because Taylor Swift invented emotion and I love her for it. in regards to this chapter: really couldn't explain why I feverishly wrote 3k words of harry having long hair but bon appetite kids that's what u get today. long-haired harry lives rent-free in my head. enjoy luvs xx
> 
> relevant tags: Harry & Ron & Hermione, Harry & Sirius, Canon Divergence, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter Needs (and gets) A Hug, Desi Harry Potter, Black Hermione Granger

At the Dursleys, Harry's options for resistance are limited. His magic offers what little is available and takes the first steps—it keeps Dudley from hitting him when it can, it opens the closet door when he needs it to, and it keeps Harry's hair long.

Harry's hair is long and getting longer. He doesn’t want to cut it—he likes that it hides his scar, he likes that it hides his eyes and the anger in them, he likes the way it feels in a summer breeze. It usually curls behind his ears, unruly and wild and dark, and Petunia couldn't ever cut it but even at Hogwarts Harry doesn't mind it.

So first year comes and goes and it doesn't get cut. He goes back to the Dursleys for summer, bruises around his neck, burns on his hands, and Petunia holds him down and shaves it all off. Something in Harry, something he felt when his teacher tried to kill him, gets very hot and then very cold, and he thinks as loudly as he can _NO_. By the next morning, it's all back, and two inches longer.

(The first thing Harry’s magic did, when other children’s accidental magic floated toys or opened flowers, was say _don’t touch me. Don’t touch me._ Harry’s hair grows and his skin bruises and the anger in him, never absent, finds release where it can. _)_

Nobody really says anything until third year. By then it's just above Harry's shoulders, curly and wild and thick, and when Sirius sees him he still sees James but he sees Harry too. "Just like your father, though your hair is a lot longer, and with-"

"My mother's eyes, yeah," says Harry, smiling shyly, running a hand through loose curls, Sirius looking at him with so much fondness that it's blinding. 

When Sirius says goodbye, he winds his fingers through Harry's hair, pushes it past his ears and presses a long, hard kiss to his forehead. Hermione thinks to herself that they look almost similar, Sirius and Harry, despite Harry's brown skin and Sirius' gauntness, both a bit wild in the eyes and with wilder hair, Sirius’ matted and thin and halfway down his back, both too skinny, both deciding to become family because they have no one else to claim.

Fourth year comes and Ron pulls Harry by the hand around the Burrow, says “Mum’s trying to cut Bill’s hair, Harry, you’d better not let her see yours!” Fred and George tug him between themselves and shove a quidditch hat onto his head, teasing him for his _rugged looks_ until Charlie interrupts them by saying he likes it.

Everything starts to go wrong at the Quidditch World Cup, and when Ron stops being friends with Harry after he’s entered into the Triwizard Tournament, Harry’s hair hangs in front of his face to hide his expressions, like he used to do at the Dursleys, feeling sullen and bitter and, mostly, horribly hurt.

Rita Skeeter reaches out to tug Harry's hair into place for the group photo. He slaps her hand away without thinking, her nails longer and gaudier than Petunia’s but her outraged gasp just the same, and maybe she would say something more but Viktor clears his throat and Cedric puts a hand on Harry's shoulder and Fleur tosses her long blonde hair with a loud noise. Their protection isn’t much but it’s more than he expected.

(When they see him, they feel frustration and outrage that he’s competing at all, but they also see a kid—fourteen years old, without any champion’s family to visit him, with messy hair that he has to push out of his eyes.)

Harry's hair is just past his shoulders now and when he goes to the ball, Parvati and Padma roll their eyes at its unruly mess until he gathers it all into a bun. They give him a bottle of curl product for Christmas, and when he tracks them down, they show him how to use it, long nimble fingers detangling and twisting their way patiently through what he had always believed to be untameable. The twins wolf whistle at him until his face burns, but he's smiling. 

Voldemort pushes his hair back roughly and Vernon uses it to pull Harry around and that summer Harry cuts it all off, sobbing in the bathroom. It doesn't make anything better and he can't stop crying, hands full of dark locks, and the next morning it’s back, tentatively brushing his skin. He works his fingers through its length and reminds himself to breathe, tries to stop thinking about the way Cedric’s eyes glazed over, tries not to remember how Sirius had to wash blood out of his hair and off his face when he sat on the hospital bed afterwards, with Ron and Hermione holding a hand each as Harry sank deep into numbness.

When Harry finally gets taken to Grimmauld place before his fifth year, after a dementor attack and before a court appearance, he's angry and hurting. Molly says "Oh, Harry, don’t you think it's time for a trim?" and Sirius says "He's not your son, Molly," and Harry wakes screaming more often than he doesn't. Bill ruffles his hair and bumps his shoulders, Charlie winks at him across the table, Remus smiles from the doorway, but as hard as he tries, Harry can't forget how these people let him compete in the Triwizard competition and yet now choose to call him a child. He finds old pictures in Sirius’ room of the Marauders, young and smiling, and traces their faces with his finger, James’ hair a wild cloud that didn’t dip past his ears while Sirius himself had long glossy hair to his shoulders, far healthier than it is after a decade of nutrient deprivation.

At school, Umbridge carves words into Harry's skin and tries only once to cut his hair as punishment. Now nearing his collarbones, it comes back before she's even lowered her wand, and Harry hides his smile—this is his oldest act of resistance and he’s well practiced at it.

George and Harry get kicked off the quidditch team for beating up Malfoy, and the quidditch team holds them back, George’s face bright red and Harry’s hair as agitated as he is. Angelina is near tears at their lifetime ban but she still shoves at Harry’s head as affectionately as ever, sighing helplessly as Fred slings arms around George and Harry and presses sloppy kisses to their cheeks, still mumbling curses.

When teaching the DA, Harry ties half his hair up into a bun, and when kissing Cho, her hands get caught awkwardly in his curls.

Harry wakes up screaming and hissing and tasting blood. He stands in Dumbledore’s office knowing how it looks when a grown man is bleeding out, knowing how it feels to kill, and Dumbledore still won’t _look at him_. He doesn’t think he should visit Arthur—he did that to him, he did—but the Weasleys drag him there, and when Molly sees him she brushes his still sweaty hair out of his eyes and pulls him into the tightest hug of his life. Ginny holds his hand and squeezes. The twins, for once, are fully serious when they wrap arms over his shoulders and tug him to their sides.

Harry has another dream. Sirius is screaming. Kreacher is laughing. Then they're in the ministry and they’re fighting and Harry is _so angry_ at the Death Eaters (grown adults who watched him writhe in agony not even a year ago) and _so proud_ of his friends (so scared for them, he’s so scared for them) but they’re cornered until the Order arrives. Sirius is at his side and curses are flinging everywhere, and Sirius calls out “Nice one, Harry!” and then Bellatrix shoots something bright from her wand and Sirius goes tumbling back, back, back and through the veil.

Harry is screaming and straining against Remus's arms, his heart a twisting mass of _NO NO NO,_ his hair coming loose and tumbling in front of his eyes, streaming behind him when he shoots off after Bellatrix.

When Voldemort possesses him it splays lifelessly across the floor and his cheeks, collecting glass and dust and blood.

Harry loses control in Dumbledore's office, his magic and his anger bursting out of him in explosive violence, tears on his face, his throat sore from yelling, _then I don't want to be human_ and insurmountable grief. His hair an unruly mess that he can't find the energy to tend to, and he covers his face with his hands, hurting so badly he can't find the words to describe it. 

He goes back to the Durlseys. His hair keeps growing.

It's sixth year and Draco is up to something and Harry's hair is by now quite long, and he pulls half of it out of his face into a bun or ponytail when he's coaching the quidditch team—Ginny takes it down when she kisses him. Slughorn eyes him with confusion—Harry knows he doesn’t look quite as people like Slughorn expect him to, with his long hair and his jagged scar and his mother’s eyes at their flintiest. Luna, with a small thin scar on her throat from the Ministry attack, sometimes tracks Harry down and winds things through his hair, little bells and charms and rings, and she thinks of it as protection so Harry keeps them in as long as he can. He misses Sirius. He fights with Hermione about the potions book, but when Ron is off with Lavender, Harry spends evenings in front of the fire with Hermione braiding his hair back and out of his face, his curls winding around her fingers until it gets easier for her to breathe.

Dumbledore dies. Snape kills him. Harry was right all along and his rage is an inferno.

By the time seventh year arrives and Harry and Ron and Hermione are on the run, Harry's hair is so long that he takes to wearing it in a ponytail, reaching halfway down his back. Ron’s hair grows long too, behind his ears, nearing his shoulders, while Hermione cuts off a huge chunk of her own tight curls in a fit of locket-enhanced frustration. The tent becomes a world of their own, hiding from the outside, wearing Molly’s sweaters to feel a little closer to all the people they’ve left behind. Ron listens to the radio constantly. Harry hears every name listed as dead and they weigh on his heart like stones. There isn't a day that passes where it doesn't feel as though they are running out of time. 

After Ron leaves them, on the quiet nights, Hermione untangles his verifiable mane with her fingers and he braids her wild afro out of her eyes, trying to tame their hair without the products or the time that they used to have at disposal, recapturing a little bit of nostalgic routine from easier times, and the space where Ron would usually sit takes up so much room that it aches.

They face Nagini and Harry’s wand is broken and they keep going because they don’t have any other option. Harry gets pulled into the lake, and his hair streams behind him as the locket wraps around his neck and tightens. Ron pulls him out. He pulls a sweater over Harry's thin, shaking chest and with shy, careful fingers he brushes Harry's long hair out of his eyes and behind his ears. When the image of Hermione and Harry rises out of the locket before Ron kills the horcrux, false Harry’s hair isn’t as long as real Harry’s, and it’s glossy and thick and healthy—real Harry’s hair is a mess. Real Harry is half starved and exhausted and angry at Dumbledore, at Voldemort, at himself. 

They get captured by snatchers and Hermione is tortured while Ron throws his body against the doors. Bellatrix pulls Harry’s hair up and over his forehead, says, “Is this him, Draco? Is it?” Draco’s cowardly eyes go teary as he stammers a confused reply, still willingly committing atrocities with his family but feeling guilty about it, even after all this time. Dobby dies. Bill and Fleur feed them a cooked dinner for the first time in months. Harry has a long, hot shower, and he washes his hair for longer than is probably acceptable, and when he emerges he feels almost human again. 

They rob Gringotts and free a dragon, and everything begins to move very quickly, until Aberforth is opening a portrait and Neville is climbing out of it, bloodied and bruised and beaming. 

Harry’s known he was a figurehead since he was eleven, understood the danger of it at fifteen, and hated it at seventeen—this is the heaviest the responsibility has ever felt, with children’s faces staring up at him in the Room of Requirement, _tell us what to do,_ the remaining members of the DA saying _tell us who to fight,_ Ron and Hermione brushing up against his shoulders like they always have. 

Harry takes a breath. He stands up straight and gathers his hair into a messy ponytail and asks the children hiding in the Room of Hidden Things if they know where to find the last missing horcrux. 

There’s so much death that night. Lavender, bloodied and raw, left twitching on the floor as Parvati screams and clings to her clothes. Fred, with his brothers bowed over his prone form, his parents sobbing roughly. Lupin and Tonks, hand in hand, leaving their son parentless—Harry stares at them and feels so very old, and so terribly alone. Colin Creevey, eyes open and unseeing as though again petrified. Snape, with memories and blood and tears sliding over his skin and spreading across the floor, one hand fumbling at Harry’s cheek and touching his hair, _you have your mother’s eyes._

When Harry walks into the woods and turns the resurrection stone, it shows him his loved ones, all dead and gone. Remus—his body not yet cooled. Sirius, healthier than Harry had ever known him to be, hair glossy, saying _quicker and easier than falling asleep._ His parents, too, Lily and James, barely even twenty-one. James really does look like Harry—he’s a bit taller, his skin a shade darker, and his hair is wild and thick but it stops at creating a halo around his head, and Harry's tumbles down his back. Lily, her bright eyes warm, an exact match to his, her shiny red hair nearly reaching her waist. Their ghosts are only a few years older than him, now. 

When Hagrid carries Harry into the courtyard, sobbing, cradling Harry like a child in his arms, Harry’s long hair spills over Hagrid's arms and swings from step to step. Ginny screams _no_ and McGonagall screams _NO_ and Hermione and Ron make horrible, choked off noises. Neville bursts into flame and keeps fighting and kills the snake, just like Harry asked him to, so bold and brave and beautiful that Harry’s pride nearly swallows him whole. 

He stands up straight and slides of the cloak and says, “Tom.” 

They fight, as they always do, as they have been for Harry’s whole life. At the end of it, Voldemort—Tom Riddle, mortal once more— falls to the ground and lies there, an empty husk of what he was. He's dead, and Harry is alive.

Harry sways in place and stares down at him, and the battle around them stops dead—someone screams, and then a great resounding cheer rises up and drowns out the sound of Death Eater rage. 

Harry stands in place and lets the others subdue those who remain. Hermione and Ron sprint desperately towards him, weaving around obstacles and shoving Death Eaters violently out of their way, though he doesn’t notice until they collide roughly into him. He staggers back, hands raising helplessly, as Hermione’s arms wrap around his waist and squeeze and Ron pulls him into his chest, still so much taller than Harry, his biceps straining from how tightly he’s holding Harry close. They hold him between themselves and Harry slumps forward, lets himself be held, resting his forehead against Ron’s collar, one arm around Ron and one arm around Hermione. 

“He’s gone,” says Harry, wonderingly. 

“Don’t you ever do that again,” says Hermione, “Don’t you ever. Oh, I hate you.” Then she bursts into tears and says, “I don’t mean that, you know I don’t, I love you, we love you, we do. Oh, thank god.” 

Ron laughs wetly, the sound torn from somewhere raw. “We did it,” he says. “Harry, you did it, it’s over. It's over.” He presses a kiss to Harry’s hair and exhales shakily. Around them, the battle draws to its sputtering end, Death Eaters stunned or killed or bound, families and friends drawing their loved ones close or falling helplessly to their knees next to their bodies. 

Later in the evening, someone will set off fireworks over Hogsmeade, and people will begin trying to repair Hogwarts. Later in the evening, those with fight left to give will storm the Ministry and tear it apart. They’ll begin the thorough, difficult process of cleansing the world of magic from the people and ideas that brought it to war—they’ll free the muggleborns in Azkaban, arrest the officials who turned in their friends, submit every Ministry employee to enough Veritaserum to determine who did and didn’t believe in what they were doing, persecute everyone who did Voldemort’s job for him and made it that much easier for the Wizarding world to collapse into hate.

Later in the evening, Luna and Neville will find Ginny and hold her close, let her sob into their shirts, because they kept Hogwarts’ children safe after Harry left but they’ve lost people anyway. 

Later in the evening, Harry will stumble next to Remus and Tonks’ bodies and sit by them until he starts to cry, wanting their shades to have been real but knowing that they weren’t, wondering how he’s going to tell Andromeda, wondering how he’s going to raise Teddy. Hermione and Ron find him, their eyes and cheeks wet, and they sit next to him, Hermione’s head on his shoulder, Ron’s fingers carding through Harry’s loose curls. 

“Let’s go,” says Hermione, eventually. “We deserve to rest,” she says. Harry is numb, but Ron and Hermione know how to deal with him like this, and he trusts them and lets them manoeuvre him around. They pull him up to their old dorm room and ward it strongly enough that no one will even be able to approach the room (sending a message to McGonagall and the Weasleys to let them know) and get changed sloppily (Hermione in Harry’s sweatpants, the boys without shirts at all,) then fall into bed all together, Harry sandwiched in the middle. Hermione puts a hand on Harry’s chest, palm pressed to the new lightning-bolt scar that cleaves it nearly in two. Ron slings an arm over Harry’s waist and grips Hermione’s shirt (which is really Ron’s own shirt) in his hand. 

They murmur things to each other, warm and safe in the dark, so full of relief that they can’t yet feel it, until they fall asleep. It's over, and they are alive. 

Life goes on, as it does. 

There are funerals upon funerals and rebuilding and reconstruction. 

Hogwarts is repaired, the Ministry is dismantled and thoroughly cleansed. A new organisation takes its place, the _Government of Magic,_ headed by Kingsley Shacklebolt as Minister, Hermione as Head of Justice _,_ Ron as a key strategist on the GoM’s board of members and responsible for implementing new strategies and programs—one of the first he designs is to protect children in abusive households, like Harry, like Sirius, like Snape. Harry stays at home in Grimauld, and he helps the GoM, and he hunts down Death Eaters and trains Aurors, and he visits Teddy two or three times a week, who flickers his eyes green when he wants Harry to hold him, and grows a cloud of dark, loose curls when Harry walks through the door. 

A year after the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione and Harry hand in their resignations. Kingsley promises they’ll have a place when they return, but they don’t care, they’ve had enough of responsibility and pressure and they deserve a break so that’s what they give themselves. 

They go to big dinners with the former DA, and they go to the beach, and they travel to places they’ve always wanted to go. They manage to heal Hermione’s parents, and they play quidditch, and they do a million other things, relearning joy, relearning trust, relearning kindness. 

The war is over and their world is recovering. They recover with it. 

Eventually, many years later, Harry stands in front of a classroom where he himself was taught by teachers who more often tried to kill him than help him. His hair, now trimmed to reach just past his collarbones, with a few streaks of early-onset white, is kept in a loose bun. His students call him _Professor Potter,_ and his godson takes a lot of joy in it. His family, most of whom are not related to him, call him _Harry._ All is well. 


	2. life in love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> different paths for Harry in romance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from carry hatchet, "sweet bitter". the song is very sad and very much Harry Potter but this chapter isn't sad, i think?
> 
> relevant tags: Harry/Ginny, Harry/Neville, Harry/Hermione/Ron, Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant

In one world he marries Ginny and loves her.

She's as bright and wild as he is, more than twice as fun, only half as damaged by the war. She's got callouses on her fingers from broom handles and Harry from hard labour, and when they walk into a room people stop and stare, half in awe, half in jealousy. She's beautiful and funny and vicious, and she teases Harry as though she'd never once hidden from him in her own house. They throw and attend raucous parties and laugh until they cry. He almost takes her last name but she convinces him to keep his alive- two out of three of their kids are ginger and he loves it. They play quidditch until they nearly fall off their brooms and when Ginny tugs him from place to place Harry feels utterly at peace. 

He comes home from work as an auror and she from quidditch and they make fun of all their coworkers. They invite their friends over for teas and they raise Teddy with all the joy and love that his parents could have wanted, gifting him his first broom, teaching him how to fly, tossing him into the air just to hear him laugh, decorating his room with every colour under the sun and applauding when his fair flickers between red and black. Many think they are too young for it but age has never stopped them from anything; they do it anyway and they do it brilliantly. Their middle son is a Slytherin, and Ginny sends him a loud letter of congrats while Harry makes a green cake.

Their love is an easy one. Their home is one of laughter and freedom and smiles.

*

In one world Harry kisses Neville eighteen months after the battle of Hogwarts.

He'd been wandering around ever since that night, tying up loose ends, fighting Death Eaters for the Ministry since fighting is what he's best at- that's what he's told (really it's all he's ever done). And then one day he shows up at Neville's house and doesn't know why he's there but Neville lets him in, makes him tea, and takes him outside to sit in the sun. They're both orphans of a kind, soldiers of another, and when Harry looks at Neville he feels safe.

Harry spends a summer in Neville's house, then an autumn, with its soft green and yellow walls, with murals painted by Luna and decorations crafted by Padma and Hannah. Harry lies in the garden and gossips with the snakes while Neville tends to his plants. DA members stop by to update them about their lives, the two child leaders who kept Hogwarts' children safe when their school wouldn't, Harry baking cakes, Neville making tea. They kiss eighteen months after the battle and it's the easiest thing in the world; feels like coming home, feels like saying hello.

Their students eventually know them as Professors Longbottom and Potter, of Herbology and DADA, decorated war heroes who wear cozy knitted sweaters and matching rings from a wedding officiated by Minerva McGonagall, with Luna and Ginny as best women and Hermione and Ron as mates of honour. They teach their students to be kind. They will never be anybody's boggart. 

They are heroes of hard upbringings and they deserve to choose gentle lives.

*

  
In one world Harry loves Ron and Hermione most.

That's a constant in every world, really, but in this world they pull him into their home and their bed and he goes willingly, smiling, surprised but not really. In this world Ron kisses Harry's forehead all the time and Hermione kisses Harry's cheeks every day but they also kiss his lips, his shoulders, his knuckles and scars. The war taught them to keep each other close, and Hogwarts taught them to be defensive of each other, and peacetime is the first time they can love each other without some kind of fear. The three of them whirl around their living room to loud music and curl up on the couch to read and play chess and rest, and Harry loves them so fiercely he burns.

Falling together was only natural; Ron and Hermione are not the same as RonHarryHermione and they wouldn't want it any other way. They keep their relationship secret for a while but not really, not to anyone who bothers to look, and eventually they just elope all together on a whim. Molly nearly cries when she hears, so they throw a bonding ceremony, where George is the best man and Fleur and Viktor act as Harry's outrageously protective siblings of a sort, slinging arms over Harry's chest and performing half-drunk shovel talks. Hagrid gives them iced rock cakes, and somehow the whole former quidditch team shows up, Oliver Wood pulling all three into his arms and proclaiming them still his babies. 

They join the ministry, the three of them, and turn it all inside out. Hermione's passion for justice and Ron's tactical genius and Harry's pure determined stubbornness make them an intimidating trio, all with Orders of Merlin, all with scars they bare unapologetically, daring anyone to challenge them after a lifetime of fighting an unfair world. They visit the Burrow every second weekend and when one of them wakes up screaming in the night, the other two are there to soothe back their hair and whisper reassurances into their skin: it's over, we're safe, we're together.

Eventually they have kids, too, lots of them, all with names that are entirely their own, and Harry never once feels without a family, never once feels unloved or alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> review if y'all have comments or requests!! <3


	3. innocence died screaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Think, for a moment, of Harry, Hermione, Ron. They were only children when it all began, so young when they learned self-reliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from hozier this time! idk what this is. the older I get (and I am still only young) the sadder I get about the golden trio.
> 
> relevant tags: Harry Potter Has PTSD, Hermione Granger Has PTSD, Ron Weasley Has PTSD (WHY was that not a tag!!), y'all ever get sad about the golden trio's trust issues, Child Soldiers, Canonical Child Abuse

Think, for a moment, of Harry, Hermione, Ron. Sitting outside, in the autumn gold. Leaves under their hands. Scars on their fingers. Hermione is reading. Ron is dozing. Harry is watching the clouds, drifting, drifting himself. A soft moment, which they know to treasure. There are so few.

Think, for a moment, of Harry, Hermione, Ron. Every year wondering: which teacher will let us down? Which adult will betray us, which parent dismiss us? Every year being burned by love they are still unafraid to give.

Think of the collection of scabs on palms and knees. The collection of scars, ever growing, shining silver on white skin, brown skin, black skin, growing weathered and calloused. The routine of visiting a hospital bed in the medical wing. Falling five hundred feet from a broom more than once; spending long nights in the library reading everything they can with terrified desperation; teaching themselves charms to keep themselves safe since no one else will protect them. Eleven years old and setting fire to a teacher's robes, thirteen years old and raising their fists, so quick to defend each other from the ever-increasing threats that adults pose.

The gradual loss of trust in a school that others still feel safe in.

Think, for a moment, of Harry, Hermione, Ron. Some friendships are forged in fire. Some friendships live in it. The others watch them and wonder. Ron and Hermione argue but they know what it feels like to fight alongside each other, have grown attuned to the twitches of a face and the tremble in their fingers. It's something about being thrown together at age eleven into a battle that doesn’t end.

Their parents, their teachers, their friends all call them children. Think, for a moment, of Hermione and Ron, who scoff and then wonder when it stopped being the truth. Harry, for whom it never was. Children whose teachers turned them away, whose school made them bleed, whose rooms were cupboards. Children who learn violence early and adapt quickly—Harry with his hands melting a face apart, Ron flinging hexes at classmates, Hermione sewing curses into parchment. They were so young when they learned self-reliance.

Think of the afterwards. Sitting outside, a constellation of three: Harry is drifting, Ron is dozing, Hermione is reading. They are linked by the touch of ankles and wrists. They are at peace. They are silent and as safe as they ever feel.

Harry wakes from nightmares and the others may never know but Hermione and Ron do, will sit by him with shoulders pressed together, will know how his heart is made of mostly ghosts and will love him anyway. They press up together in the summers and they worry for him, they curse his prison (it is not a home and it never was), they dread his anger and yearn for it. Harry who wanted a world of magic and received a world that decides every year anew whether it loves him or hates him, shouldered with a burden that would have crushed anyone else underneath it; Harry who loves to fly and has grown so used to falling; Harry who wished for family and received it in the form of two best friends but never manages to trust anyone else.

Hermione crackles and burns at the sound of ignorance like she never used to, brittle and burned by torture and hatred and running and being scorned at age fourteen for wanting justice, at age thirteen for playing it safe, at age eleven for raising her hand. After she’s spat words of vitriol undeserved or screamed herself raw, Ron will drape his arms over her shoulders from behind, heavy and familiar and pressing his cheek to hers, as Harry traces the clear skin of her hand where his own bears a scar a teacher gave him, and they will be silent because Hermione does not need anyone to tell her that it is okay, and she will know they love her and always have.

Ron watches his family and feels a loss that stems from something other than grief over his brother, will feel cut off from them in a way he doesn’t think he can ever overcome. He's buried in so many secrets from over the years that he doesn't know how to emerge from them, doesn't know how to bridge the gap between him and his brothers, some of whom left Hogwarts before he'd first shed his blood onto its stones. Hermione digs her chin into his shoulder and Harry slips an arm over his much taller shoulders to tug him close because the three of them might not be perfect, may not always even be kind, but they made their family out of bones and blood and bitterness and they love him for all his flaws and contradictions.

Think, for a moment, of Harry, Hermione, Ron. They were so young, only children when it all began. They find joy where they can find it, peace when possible. They fight and argue and love each other fiercely. They are soldiers and generals and figureheads of a war that starts earliest for them alone, victims of a world that never treats them kindly, or as they deserve. Hermione’s wand learns curses that her teachers would never teach her, Ron’s strategic words are cutting and his loyalty stems from a ready defensiveness, Harry’s skin is scarred and bruised and his powerful magic hardens as he does. 

Think of Harry, Hermione, Ron, spitting in the face of authority and doing what they believe needs to be done regardless. They were so young when they learned violence, so young when they chose bravery, and they become the heroes that their world needs because their world never once showed them that there was any other option.

They’re sitting by the lake, Harry on his back, Ron on his stomach, Hermione curled over herself reading a book with one of their heads in her lap. They’re silent, and comfortable, and for now they are safe.

They are the heroes of their time.

(They are only children.)


	4. chisel beauty from grotesque things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about Harry and touch is that there's a thing about Harry and touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> relevant tags: Harry&Ron&Hermione, Canon Compliant, Implied Canonical Child Abuse, Harry getting + receiving hugs, Touch-Starved; softly implied poly golden trio
> 
> title from 'wicked love' by sarah bareilles! this is saved on my computer as "can u tell i'm touch starved" so like. yeah. also THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER COMMENTED ON THIS i'm in love with u all

The thing about Harry and touch is that there's a thing about Harry and touch.

*

Ron and Hermione are eleven. They are curious and learning and occasionally cruel. They fight and laugh and defeat a troll; spend their nights researching what a three headed dog is guarding; smuggle a dragon and get sent into the forbidden forest.

They sit each other down, these two eleven-year-olds, only children, and say "we need to talk about Harry."

Harry who is also eleven but never visibly frightened, quiet until his words explode out of him with reckless precision, who needs to be prodded into asking questions of teachers. Harry who's never had a Christmas present, doesn’t expect even one, and doesn’t see how that’s abnormal. Harry who never initiates touch, even if he doesn’t flaunt the aversion.

“Yes,” they say, “We need to talk about Harry.”

*

Ron and Hermione learn more over the years. Harry doesn't touch anyone else at all (unless it is with violence, but this is another matter) and Ron and Hermione have long since put their heads together to discuss what life at the Dursleys is really like, piecing together the puzzle from the snippets Harry drops, addressing the habits of Harry's that no one else seems to notice.

This is a boy who watches Molly Weasley like she’s a mystery and watches Severus Snape like he’s used to hatred. This is a boy with calloused hands and a scrawny, underfed look that’s impossible to notice; a boy whose cousin is robust and tanned and well cared for.

Ron and Hermione are thirteen now. They are fighting and fierce and they think, for most of the year, that a serial killer is trying to kill their best friend. Other children are learning how to have crushes—these two are lying awake at night wondering who next will try and murder Harry.

When they’re not fighting over Crookshanks and Scabbers, wandering Hogsmeade alone because Harry ran away before his relatives could give him permission to go along, they make quiet plans to squirrel him away from his aunt and uncle. Each scheme is more vicious than the last, Ron and Hermione both capable of being vengeful and mean when they want to be, both of them getting slowly angrier at the grown-ups who let bad things happen to Harry so carelessly, who hear that he ran away and don’t ask about why. 

*

So Harry doesn't touch anyone, but he lets his best friends touch him. This is deliberate. Ron won a game of sentient chess at eleven; Hermione solved a castle's mystery at twelve. They are deliberate people, with deliberate intentions.

They bump shoulders with Harry until they can link arms with him. They touch knees on the couch until they can sling an arm over his shoulders. They ruffle his hair roughly until they can brush it gently out of his eyes.

They test the waters of affection until he allows them to drown him in it, carefully, bit by bit.

Third year culminates with all three of them putting aside their fights and squabbles to push each other behind their skinny prepubescent arms, baring their teeth to escaped convicts and teachers alike.

By fourth year Hermione is kissing Harry’s cheeks and Ron is crawling into bed with him after nightmares. By fifth, they take his hands in theirs and they wrap his wounds in cloth and they press their chins into his shoulders to remind him that they’re there. By sixth, when Harry sees them after summer he pulls them into tight hugs, arms squeezing around them, keeping them close and being kept close in return.

*

Ron and Hermione guard it carefully, their right to touch and their right to Harry. They guard _him_ carefully. He's positioned behind an arm when Ron tries to keep Sirius Black at bay with his body alone. He's kept close to Hermione's side when the school is wearing badges against him. When Seamus or Ernie toss accusations, it’s Ron who snarls and snaps at them and Hermione whose fingers rest lightly upon her wand.

They’ve watched Wizarding society scorn and worship Harry, year after year, watched classmates and adults call him _saviour_ and _child_ and _heir_ and _deranged_ , and they watch it turn Harry wary, never sure who next will betray him and never sure how long he can trust someone before being disappointed.

It makes his temper volatile and hot, and it makes their tolerance short and cold—when Hermione curses the DA parchment, she means every moment of pain that it’ll invoke; when Zacharias Smith challenges Harry’s authority, Ron is out of his seat and baring his teeth so aggressively that his brothers are taken aback.

They are the only people in the world who Harry lets touch him and touches in return, the only people (they sometimes selfishly think) that he loves, and it makes them defensive (or maybe it’s possessive, because what else can you be when your best friend is a celebrity and a pariah and a _minor_ ).

After fourth year, Harry sits traumatised on the hospital wing bed, fingers wound through Sirius’ fur until Sirius is forced to leave, and then Hermione and Ron squeeze onto the bed beside him, one on each side—Madam Pomfrey and Molly make aborted sounds of alarm, uncertain how Harry will respond, but they’re quelled when Harry lets his head slump sideways onto Ron, face nestled in the crook of Ron’s neck, one of Ron’s arms behind him, with Hermione running a hand through his hair, humming and holding his hand tightly, cheek resting on his shoulder.

Harry wakes screaming at the Burrow and Ron is at his side in an instant, pulling him into the circle of his freckled arms, shushing him softly and pushing Harry’s sweaty curls out of his eyes. Hermione tiptoes to their room and slides into Harry’s bed, winds her arms around Harry’s waist so that he’s between them, warm, safe. In the morning, they won’t talk about it more than a simple _alright?_ and they’ll employ all their years of sneaking around the castle to make sure the Weasleys never detects that Hermione spends half her nights with the boys.

When Sirius dies, and Harry is possessed, Hermione and Ron are just as injured as he is, in more way than one—they all loved Sirius, even Hermione, even if just because of how much Harry loved him, and they all fought the Death Eaters and bear the scars that gave them. Ron’s arms are striped in silver, Hermione’s ribs creak, Harry is so far into his own head that he doesn’t respond to the outside world.

It feels like the end of something, even more than Cedric’s death did.

After blowing up Dumbledore’s office, right before the end of the school year, Harry finds Ron and Hermione and, entirely accidentally, bursts into tears. His anger abated, all that’s left is a horrible, gaping sea of grief—Hermione opens her arms to him and Ron pulls them both close, and all three of them spend the evening shuddering through the horror they’re still processing. 

*

Ron and Hermione are the ones who look at Harry, fifteen and angry and scarred, just as they looked at Harry when he was eleven and underfed and wary, and say _we love you on purpose_. _You are ours to cherish and ours to protect. Let us love you as you are._

They still fight, of course, because they’re teenagers and because they’re traumatised every year in new ways. Sometimes Harry sides with Ron, sometimes he sides with Hermione, sometimes he sides with neither—but when they’re fighting, no matter how fiercely, they still jump to defend each other.

Ron calls Harry a liar but when Seamus does it he nearly punches him. Hermione and Harry don’t speak for months but when Lavender calls him obtuse Hermione lashes out angrily. They’re still growing, still changing, but they never stop loving each other.

Harry has saved and endangered Ron and Hermione’s lives more than once, and the same can be said in reverse. He’s theirs to protect, theirs to care for—they’re allowed to fight with him because he knows they’ll never leave him—they’re the only ones who won’t, maybe, the ones who know the most about Harry and accept it all. They’re the only ones who look at the Dursleys and listen to Harry, the only who understand, and know to _hate_ the people who starve Harry every summer. They look at Harry and all the ways he has lost people and they say _not us, not ever, not really. We love you on purpose._

They’re best friends. They learn each other and they don’t let go.

*

Others notice it, how Harry drifts towards the other two unconsciously, how Ron becomes an overprotective shadow looming over everyone near Harry, how Hermione’s eyes grow dangerous and flinty when adults talk over Harry or raise their voices.

Behind their backs, sometime in between first and fifth year, the rest of Gryffindor (and then the rest of the school) goes from calling them _Harry Potter and his friends_ to _those three_ to _the Golden Trio_ —they never hear it, and wouldn’t find it flattering, but the relationship between the three of them (fighting amongst each other, fighting alongside each other, fighting for each other,) isn’t easy not to notice.

Harry, as a person, isn’t relaxed. His childhood was cruel to him, and it made him cautious; Hogwarts is his home, but it is not a safe one. His relatives never hugged him. He grew up in a small, cramped cupboard; his cousin hit him; his aunt swung pans at his head and his uncle jolted towards him with raised hands to watch him flinch.

It’s only when next to Ron and Hermione that his shoulders lower and his eyes stay fixed in one place, as he leans up against them or tussles with them affectionately. Ron pulls him around Hogsmeade and Harry lets him do it; Hermione holds his hand and Harry squeezes back. It’s with Ron and Hermione that he laughs the loudest, smiles the brightest, talks the fastest, entirely unafraid and entirely unrepentant.

Molly’s the first mother to hug him, and the Sirius the first father, but it’s Ron and Hermione who bestow upon him his first kind touches.

Sirius and Remus watch and smile, remembering a much younger Harry, understanding better than any of the other adults how the three teenagers were so tightly bonded to each other, and remembering at the same time how a child sounds when they snarl _you’ll have to kill us first_.

Molly and Arthur, less understanding, wonder at their connection, accepting it but still worrying over them and their secrets. Ron’s brothers, introduced to Harry at various times throughout the years, are suddenly expected to view Harry as another brother because Ron loves him and drags him along everywhere, even in conversation when not in spirit.

Gryffindor house, watching the three of them every year losing and gaining points, saving people and damning others, their relationship utterly indecipherable to everyone who observed them—Ron and Hermione snapping at each other and complimenting each other fiercely, Harry and Ron swiping at each other and laughing uproariously, Harry and Hermione arguing and hugging in the same day. Communication with their eyes alone.

The Gryffindor Quidditch Team, who are closest after Ron and Hermione to Harry; watching the tiny first-year Seeker go from being wary and twitchy and _small_ to a boy who doesn't mind laughing and being cheeky, still too desperate to please others but not quite so timid anymore. He wins them the Quidditch Cup in third year and they slam into him mid-air, Alicia and Katie and Angeline kissing him on his cheeks, in his hair, anywhere they can reach; Oliver sobbing into his neck and calling him _my boy_ the way he never grows out of even when they're both years older than this; Fred and George colliding into Harry's sides the way they like to and squeezing him so tight that he chokes with laughter. When they drop down to the ground, it's a surprise not to see Hermione leading the pack of supporters with Ron, because the team is so used to seeing them both close at Harry's side, watching him practice for hours, always the first to appear at his side when he crashes down violently to the ground.

(And all the times that no one else ever saw—Hermione and Harry sitting on opposite ends of a loveseat in the common room, legs tangled up together at three AM, their noses in books about history and quidditch respectively. In the dorm, Ron’s body pressed up against Harry’s in one of their beds, his arms wound around Harry’s waist and nose pressed against his back, keeping the nightmares at bay in the only way that works. Ron and Hermione walking with linked arms, whispering about the people they were suspicious of, all the people they don’t trust. All three of them walking together, laughing, with one of Ron’s arms over Harry’s shoulders or both draped over his chest, Hermione tugging Harry by the hand or with her arm around his waist while bickering with Ron.)

*

They grow up under an invisibility cloak, all three bodies bunched together to avoid detection. They grow up with Harry breaking bones and Ron and Hermione visiting him in the hospital, brushing hair off his forehead, holding his hand. They grow up drinking illegal potions, playing spectator to the most dangerous Wizarding sport, fighting teachers and monsters and often those who are both.

Ron and Hermione grow up with Harry growing harder every year, angrier and more aggressive after every summer he spends in a house that hurts him and hates him and deprives him of love and food and care, every school year being hurt in new ways.

Ron and Harry grow up with Hermione making mistakes and being bitter and petty and spiteful, hurting other people with intentions that are good only half the time, too proud by far and slow to forgive.

Harry and Hermione grow up with Ron being insecure and jealous and holding grudges, so often eyeing other people sullenly with a million thoughts swirling in his eyes that he only shares when he wants to. 

They temper each other, offering reassurance and understanding however is needed—when Harry’s rage explodes out of him in violent bursts of unpredictable magic following the death of Sirius; when Ron returns from Christmas break sullen and quiet and eying his siblings with a quiet unhappiness; when Hermione spits hurtful words about the girls in her dorm who she doesn’t always understand and who don’t always understand her.

Harry has a thing about touch, and Ron and Hermione teach him that it can be kind. Ron has a thing about jealousy, and Harry and Hermione love him best. Hermione has a thing about spite, and Harry and Ron think she’s brilliant for it.

They’re imperfect; they’re growing; they’re doing their best.

*

At the end of it all, when Voldemort’s final expression is hidden under an unremarkable sheet and his body left where it lay, Harry and Ron and Hermione lock themselves into an empty classroom, summon up their old tent, and all collapse into the suddenly magically-enlarged bed inside it.

Harry’s got dirt on his face and his hands, and a fresh scar on his chest. Hermione’s arms are scratched and bloody. Ron’s face is wet with tears that haven’t fully stopped for hours. The moments pass.

“We almost lost you,” Hermione whispers.

“You’ll never lose me,” Harry mumbles. He’s lying in the middle of them, but they aren’t touching. 

Ron shifts closer and presses his face into Harry’s curls—breaching the distance. “We’ll never lose each other.” He pauses, and then says, “I was so angry when you left. I was so scared.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers. His voice breaks, and he tries again, “I’m sorry. Sorry.”

Hermione sniffles. “Next time, you’ll bring us with you.” She presses one of Harry’s hand in between two of hers, and rests her cheek against his shoulder.

Ron makes a displeased noise and brings them all closer together. “There won’t ever be a next time,” he says firmly. “Don’t ever do that to us again. The way you looked, Harry—no.”

“We thought you were dead,” Hermione whispers. “You were dead.” _You left us_ goes unsaid.

Harry’s breath shudders when he draws into his chest. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “If I had spoken to you, either of you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, and Dumbledore thought I had to, and I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry.” The darkness of the tent is staved off by the golden candles that flicker in every corner. “I love you,” says Harry, for the first time.

Ron sighs, and closes his eyes, pressing his forehead to Harry’s hair. “I love you too,” he says, “both of you.” Ron says it all the time, raised in a family where love was easily given and taught young.

“I love you both too,” says Hermione wetly, kissing Harry’s cheek, grabbing for Ron’s hand. She’s never been the best with emotion, but those words haven’t ever been hard for her to say. “Forever. So much.”

“So much,” echoes Harry, tugging them close, their hands resting over his beating heart. “I love you both so much.”

*

One day, Harry has children. They are named for the people who taught him important things ( _Jamie Sirius, Roman Arthur, Ruby Luna)_ and they grow up with famous parents but legacies that are entirely their own, protected from the camera flashes and slander that taught their father how cruel public opinion can be.

Harry is the very best kind of father. He hugs his children every time they come home from school, ruffles their hair when they come to watch him cook in the kitchen. He kisses their foreheads and soothes their hurts and his scarred, calloused, hardened hands treat them as though they are the most precious things he has ever held.

The people who raised him were cruel, and Harry did not learn love and touch and joy from Petunia and Vernon.

He learned it despite them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always been conflicted about the way the Potter children were named. here they are Jamie Sirius for Harry’s dads, Roman Arthur for the men who showed him unconditional kindness, and Ruby Luna for Rubeus and Luna. (yes I'm still conflicted, tell me your thoughts)
> 
> are Jamie, Rome and Rubes Harry and Ginny's kids, or Harry-Ron-Hermione's kids?? that's up to u babes xx


	5. beauty lays behind the hills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry leaves Britain following the War, and learns for the first time what it is to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> relevant tags: Harry Potter & Weasley Family, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Harry Potter Has PTSD, Child Soldiers, Protective Weasley Family, Post-Canon, Grief/Mourning, Healing (+ implied Harry/Ginny, but could be gen if you prefer)
> 
> chapter title from 'run boy run' by woodkid! this was inspired by https://apaladinagain.tumblr.com/post/71312134939/harry-disappears-from-the-wizarding-world-for-a  
> and yall i started this in 2017 can u BELIEVE ??

Harry doesn't leave the castle. He stays, and he watches, and he helps, and he pushes away the ache in his limbs like he always has.

"Get some rest, Harry," whispers Hermione, smile softer than it has been in months, and Harry blinks and nods.

"Just did," he lies, because there are things that he knows are waiting for him in the darkness. He can’t face them, not yet. Hermione hugs him close and if she knows he's lying (she usually does) she doesn't say so.

"Take a break, mate," rasps Ron, fingers clenched on Harry's shoulder, and Harry can see the red rimming his eyes, feel the tremble in his fingers against Harry’s too-cold skin. Harry doesn't deserve Ron's words, his worry- Fred lies somewhere still and bloodied and that is another wound altogether, tearing at Harry's heart every time he draws in a breath.

"Yeah, okay," agrees Harry, and knows that he doesn't mean the words in the slightest.

"Harry-" this is Ginny, and she is different, she always has been: " _please_."

Harry looks at her, _really_ looks at her, and he smiles. (She tries to hide her flinch but Harry has always seen what others don't want him to.) "I can't," he breathes, "I'm sorry."

* 

He stays at the castle long after Ron and Hermione apparated to Grimlaud Place, fingers wound together.

Long after Neville- _blood on his hands and shadows in his eyes that Harry recognises too well_ \- and Ginny- _valiant and with a gaze that still softens when she sees him because Ginny has always been the better of the two of them_ \- and Luna- _tired, so tired, but still burning brightly as ever_ \- have slipped away back to Hogsmeade, with the rest of the Weasley clan, and Harry tries to convince himself that he isn't avoiding them but- _Molly keeps hugging onto him as if he is part of their family and he isn't, he's broken them apart too many times, he knows better now_ \- and George won't look him in the eyes, which he deserves, but- _Fred and George were always Harry's friends, more understanding than children Harry's age and always ready to help start a fire or even just a flame, and now one of them is gone and it his all his fault_ \- and Harry has lied to himself for too long now.

He’s been lying to himself since he heard Tom Riddle call them similar and convinced himself they weren’t.

Harry rolls up his sleeves and wipes sweat off his brow (his scar still aches but it isn't the same) and raises his wand in a move so familiar to him that he doesn't even have to think about it.

Rebuilding a castle is easy (too easy) when one has magic to aid them. Harry can see, in all his (former?) teachers’ eyes, that they are grateful for this. Harry is not. The castle will bear no scars. This is a mercy, but it doesn't feel right. There is nothing to remember the battle fought here, nothing but the lives lost and the ones left standing. There are no cracks in the floor from where crystal balls hurled down from the rafters and onto skulls, there are no bloodstains to mark where death eaters got creative, there are no blast marks on the walls to honour those who ducked yet another hex. Everything is as it was and it feels like disrespect and it feels like forgetting.

Harry doesn't leave the castle, because he needs to feel something, anything, and he can't let himself slow down, not for a moment, but then- then the castle is back to how it was when this war was nothing more than a far-off nightmare.

There are only bodies, now. In the light of dawn few remain, most opting to collapse into beds and hug their loved ones close. Harry sits, for the first time in hours, his feet by Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin's bodies, and yet despite the aching misery in his chest, he cannot summon tears. He sits, and he holds a silent vigil for the covered bodies before him, calloused dirty hands held in his lap, and he thinks: _each person is here because of me. I did this. This is my fault._

_*_

In the weeks that follow, Harry does his best but he can feel himself fading.

He holds his wand too tightly, and all the time, hidden up a sweater or robe sleeve. He watches the shadows with a wariness that only Hermione shares to the same extent, flinches at loud noises and finds it impossible to laugh. He hates his reflection, and he hates his scar (finally just the shiny skin it always should have been) and his dreams are filled with Tom Riddle climbing in and out of his skin. He is trying, and he is _used_ to the aching, but he is not truly living.

He can hear Hermione and Ron discussing him softly when they think he's fallen asleep, all three of them in the same room because it feels safer, (he may be suffering in a different way to the other two parts of their trio, but they all went through a war and that is not easily forgotten,) and he pretends he doesn't know, pretends he can sleep longer than a couple hours at a time and even if he _could_ \- even the softest of noises is enough to draw his attention, these days.

He tries hardest for them, smiles when they make breakfast together, lets Ron beat him at chess over and over again, listens to Hermione talk for hours about the ministry and Hogwarts and house elves and everything in between. They have bad days too, of course they do, days where Hermione clings to her boys tightly, eyes lowered and voice silent, days where Ron goes for a walk and doesn’t return for hours, fists bloody and jaw clenched.

Ron and Hermione have bad days, but Harry doesn’t have good days. He can pretend for them anyway.

He raises an eyebrow when they come back from dealing with garden gnomes together, lips suspiciously swollen and hair mussed, and he lifts the newspaper higher. (Harry doesn't read the paper anymore.) "Do I need to give either of you the talk?" His inquiry is innocent but he means it; Hermione is as much his sister as Ron is his brother, and he wouldn't even know who to start with. They squeal and protest and blush, and Harry snorts with amusement.

Their anxious whispers don't stop, but they dwindle. He wonders, fleetingly, if they find it easier to heal because they have each other. It’s a silly thought and he dismisses it quickly, but he wonders.

_*_

Ginny understands to an extent, familiar with how it feels to drag Tom Riddle out of your brain, his fingers clawing inside you as he goes. She thinks that he should be making more of an effort, maybe, pushing himself back into life with more force—she doesn’t understand why he doesn't laugh as easily as he used to, why his eyes always seem so _tired_ , but that's okay, because Harry doesn’t yet know how to help himself but he has always done his best to help others, and Ginny needs help too.

He lets her yell and rage and glower, and when she starts crying he cries too. They sit curled together in the afternoon sun, seeking solace under a willow tree, and Harry does not think of other friends who once sat under trees in the English sun, books sprawled on their laps and pranks on their minds; he sees only Ginny, and her bleeding, healing heart; her hands fisted in his shirt, eyes half closed and breaths slowing lazily. "I love you," says Ginny, hours later, when the first few fireflies have appeared, because she has always been the braver of them. Harry looks down at her and doesn't kiss her like he might have once, when they were younger and wilder, choosing instead to draw her closer to his heart, head tucked under her chin.

"I love you too," he replies, and his voice is so soft that he isn't sure if she even hears him. (Of course she does.)

_*_

Neville is lost when Harry finds him, nearly two weeks after the battle. "How do you bear it?" He asks, and Harry sits beside him in the garden and does not question what Neville asks.

"I don't know," he says, but this isn't what Neville wants to hear. Harry shrugs and reaches out a hand to clasp Neville's shoulder. "You find people who help you bear it," he continues, "You learn not to bear it alone. You learn you don't have to." He squeezes Neville's shoulder and Neville smiles, weary but stronger than before, and Harry does not say that _he_ does not know how to bear it, (or maybe he's simply forgotten,) that there comes a time where having people near you is simply not enough.

Neville is a hero, and Harry is a tragedy, and both boys are the same but not. Harry calls Neville a hero and Neville has not suffered under that title for years as Harry has; his eyes brighten and he clasps Harry's hand in thanks as they toil in his garden, dirt under their nails and sun beating down on their backs, just the way Petunia taught him.

_*_

Luna finds Harry in Hogsmeade one day. She looks at Harry the way she always has, eyes just a bit too wide and smile just a bit too detached. Harry smiles back at her (as real as he can make it) and surges forward to give her a hug. They feed some thestrals in the forbidden forest apples and don't say a word all evening, and Luna threads flowers through their hair, daisies for Harry and marigolds for herself and peonies for both of them.

They don't need words, they never really have, and Harry lies down beside the girl people called loony and they look at the stars until they feel barely tethered to the earth at all. It's a wondrous feeling and Harry relaxes enough that when Luna blindly reaches out for his hand, he doesn't draw away or even flinch. "There's an awful lot of wrackspurts near you," she says eventually, voice as whimsical and airy as it ever has been, though her fingers are rough against Harry's own. He still isn't sure what wrackspurts are, but he can guess. "Your aura's looking rather drained." Harry tilts his head to look at her. He’s heard from Neville that she isn’t living with her father anymore.

"Yeah," he says, because there's not much he can say.

_*_

Padma and Parvarti are not the same as they used to be, but none of them really are anymore. They were never too similar, the walls of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw standing too tall between them for that, (Harry hopes that next year, when eleven year olds see floating candles above a shimmering great hall, they aren't taught what _not_ to be before they're taught what they _could_ be.)

Padma's hair hangs loose and long and free, out of the braid that Harry remembers, and Parvarti's hair swings choppily just above her shoulders. When Harry meets Parvarti’s eyes as they pass each other, there's a sharpness within them that shows she's been brought down before but she's still fighting—the lack of a smile on her face is glaringly obvious, and her eyes are lined with grief. The nod she gives him in respect feels more like the action of a soldier than that of a girl who used to find fortunes in tea leaves.

She tells him that sometimes she still looks over her shoulder, searching for a glimpse of blonde curls and laughing brown eyes. Harry suggests she talks to George.

_*_

George doesn't want sympathy, so Harry doesn't give it. He simply makes sure he's _there_ , waiting, not imposing but a steady presence nonetheless. Angelina tells Harry that the mirrors in George's new apartment are all smashed and bloody and Harry thinks _I did this_.

Percy is a shadow of himself but somehow he's rebuilding himself, piece by piece, and grief still shines in his eyes but his back is straight and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. Harry wants to hate that it took Fred's death to jolt the older boy back into his senses, but Percy came back, and that is enough for his parents and his siblings. Percy is there for Molly and he is there for Arthur and Harry thinks _they lost one son and regained another_ and then feels guilty for it _._ He hasn’t really forgotten Percy Weasley—standing beside Fudge when Harry was only fourteen, writing to Ron a year later and complicit in Umbridge’s reign.

Bill and Fleur visit the Burrow on a day that Harry’s there, and Bill sees when Harry's chest goes tight and his breathing stilted, as it sometimes does these days, and his concerned eyes follow Harry all the way outside. Charlie shows up and Molly starts to cry but they aren't only tears of heartbreak. Harry has always loved the Weasleys but, just like when he was eleven and utterly unloved, their noise and pity and words can be overwhelming.

The Weasleys are stitching themselves together as they always do, and Harry watches his own actions as if they belong to someone else, someone who plays with tiny Teddy and congratulates Fleur on her pregnancy and tries not to have panic attacks every time someone knocks on the door. He feels like he’s wearing a mask of who he thinks they want him to be, recovering and comfortable but not too close since he is, after all, responsible for all the scars they bear.

_*_

It's Ginny who says it first. They’re sitting at Ron and Harry and Hermione's table, a couple days after Ron and Hermione moved out of Grimmauld Place for their own apartment in Hogsmeade—close enough for Hermione to study, and Ron to visit the twins’ shop. Harry is sipping tea and Ginny flipping lazily through the paper.

"If you want to leave," Ginny says, "I won't stop you."

Harry looks up, surprised. "What?" He asks, confused, “I won’t leave you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” says Ginny, meeting his gaze reassuringly but saying nothing else.

Harry thinks about that all day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Ron and Hermione look at him like they're constantly waiting for him to announce something, because an idea (a longing) has taken root in Harry's mind and he doesn't know it but his eyes have found the spark they've been missing. (They'd almost forgotten what it looked like, it disappeared so long ago.)

"I'm thinking about going away for a while," Harry says slowly, a week after Ginny's proclamation.

Hermione looks up from her book and Ron puts down his fork.

"Not for too long," shrugs Harry, "Just, y'know."

They don't really, but they know Harry and that's enough, and so he's gone the next morning. This time, they let him go alone.

_*_

He knows how to drive and so he procurers a license and heads to America because he feels like wind in his hair and wide open spaces and roads that stretch for miles. He’s never been, but he used to watch the television from behind the door when Dudley was watching American movies, wishing and wishing for freedom like that

The car he gets is beaten down and a faded blue colour and likely to burst into flames at any given time, and Harry loves it. He looks at his wand for a long time, at his white-knuckled grip, and then he slowly places it in the glove department.

Magic feels—magic isn't _right_ , not anymore. Magic is (screaming and running and green blasts ducking over his shoulders, the world strangely silent except for the sound of his feet hitting the floor,) a reminder that he doesn't want. Magic feels too much like a weapon, now, not something that he used to love so much.

Magic doesn't feel as beautiful as it used to, and so Harry decides, unconsciously, to use it as little as possible.

He starts in the emptier states, drives through wheat field after wheat field, the car roof lowered and wind tossing his mess of curls behind him. (His hair has gotten rather long, he notices absently—as long as Sirius liked to keep his.)

He listens to every station on the radio, learns to stop searching for channels he'll never find, with whispers of bridges falling, families killed in their sleep. Learns to enjoy music, hands loose on the steering wheel, wand not forgotten but put aside. Learns to sing along, quietly and at the top of his lungs.

Learns to breathe in and out as steadily as he can, learns to name the stars and their constellations, remembers riding on the back of a centaur and doesn't feel bile at the back of his throat at the memory.

He picks up strangers and shoves his wand in the bottom of his bag where they can't find it. He reckons he's safe enough anyways, with these people who don’t know him, most of them running from or towards something entirely unrelated to him. He listens to the stories of people picked up from the side of the road, and all of them are inside their own giant, private lives, and for once he has no place in them at all.

He doesn't ask about the girl who can't be more than sixteen, one suitcase behind her and with bruises on her arms. ("Where do you want to go?" He asks instead, because he remembers.) He laughs with the backpacker from Australia, trading jokes long into the night.

He relearns how to be human, how to be normal, how to be muggle, how to be— just Harry, surrounded by other faces on the run. Just Harry, without Tom. Harry alone in his head. He learns to be just another nameless face on the road, a kindred spirit for some and a friend for a few and a harmless ride for others.

He feels freer than he ever has, sitting on the roof of his car at night and staring at the stars or watching the fireflies from his sleeping bag, eyes lazily drifting across fields empty of any human presence save himself. (He writes letters, at night, in the dark. _Dear Sirius. Dear Remus. Dear Mum._ He burns them in the daytime. _)_

_*_

He picks up a veteran one day and recognises the look in his eyes as if he’s staring into a mirror. They ride mostly in silence, heading vaguely to Idaho all the way up from Arizona, and one cool autumn night Harry wakes up from a nightmare to find the soldier staring across at him over the crackling fire. (Harry doesn't mind motels but he's grown long-accustomed to sleeping under the stars.) There are questions in the man's eyes but for now Harry doesn't mind answering them because he's just Harry, just normal (but muggles are not less than wizards) and he is not the Boy who Lived out here on the open road.

Harry doesn't tell the man much but he admits that he's been a solider too, and it’s the first time Harry has every said it like that but it’s true, isn’t it? Harry thinks about Colin Creevey and his camera, about the first year Ginny was comforting on the night of the battle of Hogwarts, about Lavender Brown dying violently.

He thinks about himself, fourteen years old and already a martyr for an empty old man, his friend's body cooling in his arms and blood running into his eyes.

When the veteran says goodbye to Harry, he tilts Harry’s chin up with a finger and says: “hey. Things will get better. This grief will learn to let you breathe.”

Harry nods, throat thick, and says, “Yeah.”

_*_

He heads to New York and sells his car. New York isn’t much like London, not to him, and he loses himself in the hustle and bustle. He takes photos on a film camera and doesn’t develop any of them yet. He listens to street artists and watches the tourists swarming the city.

He gets a couple short-term jobs; a cook, a cake decorator, a balloon artist for a few days. He stumbles into the Wizarding side of New York for a few hours and buys an expanding apartment-trunk—it’s got a bedroom and a kitchen inside, and it’s where he sleeps. He doesn't stay long anywhere but he feels less like he's running from somewhere and more like he's running to something.

He avoids anything that seems suspiciously supernatural and simply explores the city, and then he thinks _I wonder how Charlie's doing_ and books a flight to Romania.

Charlie is happy to see him, if surprised, and tells him that he'll have to tell Molly, she's been worried sick. "Wait just a couple days," Harry says with a half-smile, because he isn't yet ready to come home. By the time Charlie sends the letter, Harry will be gone. He helps out with some dragons (which is still cool, no matter how many dragons he's had negative experiences with,) and sends Hagrid a photo of Norberta, twice as big as Harry himself and spurting a bit of happy flame from her mouth.

He stays in Romania for three days, and then he leaves in the early hours of the morning; a couple new scars on his fingers but somehow feeling as though he has an idea of where he's heading.

_*_

He's been gone for two months when he shows up, unannounced, in George's flat. George, to his credit, doesn't scream or anything when he sees him, standing sheepishly in front of his apartment door.

"Blimey, Harry," says George slowly, and Harry grins. He's got faint brown freckles across his cheeks, half his hair is tied into a bun to avoid a truly untameable mass of curls, and he knows his eyes are lighter, less weighted. He sees it in the mirror; the shadows both under and inside his eyes have begun to fade.

"Come with me?" Asks Harry, and George slowly furrows his brow.

"Where to?"

Harry shrugs one shoulder. "Away." George, Harry notices, doesn't look better. He looks tired and angry and pale. He looks like Harry’s reflection used to.

"Okay," says George, and his lips twitch as his fingers scrawl a quick explanation for his family.

They head to Italy, because neither of them has ever been. They go swimming. Harry introduces George to muggle music, and they visit a muggle club for the first time—so many bodies is a bad idea and Harry has a panic attack in the bathroom.

They go back the next night, and drink too much and laugh more than they have in months, and dance so uncoordinatedly that they keep bumping into people. George sets off fireworks at midnight on an empty beach, Harry spinning in circles with his arms spread. They sleep in every day until lunch, and they shoulder their way through overcrowded markets to pick souvenirs for Ron. They do everything and yet nothing at all and it's wondrous.

Harry doesn't ask what's been bothering the older man (because that's what they are now, men, not boys, never boys,) and George doesn't ask where he's been, not until they've been out of the country nearly a week.

"Finding myself," Harry says with a shrug, watching the rain pour down around them. "Trying to figure out who I am." It wasn’t something he had known, who he was without Tom in his head, Voldemort chasing his heels, his relatives locking him into a cupboard—Harry’s whole life has been out of his control.

George nods jerkily. His eyes flicker over to Harry with something like hesitation. "Any luck?" His voice is hoarse.

Harry turns to him and smiles a bit. "Yeah, I think so. Getting there."

George’s smile is crooked, but it’s real. He pulls Harry into a sideways hug, knuckling at his hair, and there’s an empty spot at Harry’s other side which Fred used to fill, but there’s earth under them and sky above them and they are learning to live with their grief.

_*_

They go back to Britain when George decides that he wants to check on the shop, see if Ron’s burnt it down, and maybe (for the first time since everything) re-open the lab where Wheezes are concoted. "Are you ready to come home too?" They're back in George's apartment, and it's four in the morning. George's shoulders have lost some of their slump and his face is horribly sunburnt.

Harry squeezes George's shoulder. "Soon," he says with a half-sigh, and George accepts that.

George watches him apparate out and then he takes a breath and writes a letter. (Angelina is hurting too.) (Maybe they can learn how to hurt together, and one day they’ll learn how to heal together.)

_*_

When Harry walks into the ministry of magic, he doesn't really have a backup plan, which is probably a pattern he should change.

People stop walking and stare as he passes, and he doesn't really think to wonder why, chalking it up to _Boy Who Lived (Twice)_ and _Boy Who Sort-Of Maybe Disappeared._

He doesn't blend in, anymore. (Has he ever, though, in this world?)

"Hello," greets Harry to the new minister of magic, who blinks in surprise. Harry is pleased to notice his fingers twitch towards his robe pocket for his wand. Not an idiot, then.

"I'm Harry," says Harry. He casts his Patronus as proof, and then recalls it.

"Yes, I can see that," says Kingsley Shacklebolt, something like bemusement colouring his vowels. “Harry—how are you?”

"Good," replies Harry. He sits in the chair across from the minister's desk. "I'd like to help," he says abruptly, and then shrugs. "Not with PR, or whatever— no, I mean—I'd like to help."

Kingsley tilts his head.

Harry shrugs again. "I want to _help_ ," he explains, and his eyes are lit up like they were when he was eleven and discovering a whole new world around him.

The minister leans forward, gaze calculating. "I've read about what you can do," he says slowly, and he doesn’t sound like he’s talking about Harry’s first meeting with Voldemort, one year old and unaware his life would be forever changed. "I know you can handle yourself."

Harry inclines his head, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Take that, Fudge, he thinks.

The minister is silent for a moment. "There are a few death eaters still out there, hiding," he says slowly, and Harry smiles sharply.

_*_

Egypt is his first destination. It’s not where Harry’d have run to, if he was a death eater, but each to their own, he supposes. He goes alone. In one jean pocket hides his wand, in the other three photographs of runaway terrorists.

It only takes him four days to track them down and from there it’s fairly simple. He just has to get them to a checkpoint in Cairo where ministry people will take them to Azkaban to await trial, and these death eaters were never any sort of ringleaders. He’s after them specifically, though—these two are the death eaters who Harry knows duelled Colin Creevey. They won’t be too much of a challenge, he suspects, and they aren’t. The mission goes smoothly and in Cairo he gets handed two more photos and a slip of paper with the address of a hotel in Moscow.

This time he’s looking for the woman who was in charge of detaining muggleborn children in the Ministry before they were carted off to Azkaban. Moscow is very cold, and his cheeks go rosy and his nose runs, and he finds the death eater in a shady bar three stories below the ground. He sends Luna a postcard, which is probably not allowed for stealth reasons, but he reckons he’s owed some degree of rebellion after the whole undesirable-number-one thing, so he doesn’t sweat it. The owl he hires is three times bigger than Hedwig was, and she looks terribly intimidating until Harry offers her some of his apple—Luna will like her.

The next location is Brazil, and the next targets are responsible for killing ted Tonks. Harry stays in a seedy motel for two weeks, staking out a group of six ex-snatchers, brown skin growing ever darker under the hot sun, his hair so curly that his scar is nearly impossible to spot. He doesn’t have to do much, this time, just call in the ministry when he’s got them all in his sights and in one location.

Luna comes to visit him, without him telling her where he is—they explore rainforests, recording the fantastical creatures they find, staring up the green sea of plants above them. They visit a few different towns and cities, too, dancing around each other at night when street buskers rally up crowds into dancing, arm-in-arm twirling around each other, Luna’s long hair and Harry’s wild curls flying. 

After that it’s Paris, chasing Rodolphus Lestrange in the streets at twilight, where a curse flies so closely over his head that streaks of shocking white form in his hair. He sends Rodolphus through the floo to the Ministry, and if Bellatrix was there too Harry would kill her but she’s already dead.

Spain is his last destination. It’s fun, and wild, and free, and he catches Fenrir Greyback’s second-in-command in the middle of a market. He gets tattoos—a pair of antlers on the back of his neck, creeping around until they nearly reach his ears. A lily on his chest, right next to the lichtenberg lightning scar Voldemort gave him that night in the forest. Underneath the lily, _R.W_ and _H.G._ On his bicep, the constellation Sirius was named after, alongside a moon for Remus.

All the people who he has loved most dearly, who have loved him back.

(And on his collarbone, just so he never forgets—the deathly hallows triangle.)

It’s been half a year. Harry’s hair is past his shoulders, now, and he’s regained the weight and the colour he lost while on the run, and the scar on his forehead is nothing but a line of shiny skin.

Harry goes home.

_*_

He knocks on the door to Ron and Hermione’s apartment, and it’s eleven in the morning, and when Hermione opens the door she bursts into tears. “harry!” She cries, flying at him, and he staggers back from the force of her hug, laughing a bit in winded surprise.

The sound of his laugh makes her cry harder. Ron emerges from the kitchen (“Hermione, did you say—?”) and when he takes in the sight of Harry pushing himself through their doorway with Hermione still clinging to his neck, his mouth drops open and he drops his newspaper on the floor. In a heartbeat, Ron has reached them and pulled them close, hand at the back of Harry’s neck, touching their foreheads together.

“Bloody good timing, mate,” he says later, when they three of them are all cried-out, sitting around the kitchen table, arms and elbows still touching. “We were just saying we’d have to go and find you—weren’t we, Hermione?”

Harry laughs. As before, Hermione’s eyes go teary again. Ron is looking at Harry with a raw tenderness—both of them acting like he is something amazing, to be treasured. It’s easier to accept than it was a few months ago, when Harry was still so wounded by the war, his sense of identity utterly lost, his head and heart almost completely torn apart by everything that had happened.

“Thank you for giving me time,” he tells them.

“Of course, don’t be silly,” says Hermione, “Take all the time you need, we’ll always be here for you.”

Ron scrunches up his nose. “Well, next time if you need space, don’t disappear for months on end, hey? Or at least take us with you. Bloody hell.” Hermione swats at his arm but doesn’t disagree, and Harry cups his hands around the mug of tea that was shoved into them, so filled with love, so filled with warmth, utterly in awe of these two people who have been with him through so much.

_*_

On the day that Harry visits the Weasleys for the first time in six months, the sky is blue and cloud-free. “It’s a Harry miracle,” mutters Ron, pushing past Harry into the house— “Mum! We’ve brought gifts!”

“Honestly, Ronald, don’t _scream_ at her,” sighs Hermione, following him inside, patting at Harry’s arm in an understanding sort of way when he takes a few seconds to work up the courage to come inside.

Slowly, he steps into the threshold—a flying Wheezes product comes whizzing by his face immediately and he blinks at it. It looks as though a snitch and a Pygmy Puff have been shoved together. Charlie Weasley appears out of nowhere to grab at it, shouting something at Bill behind him— “Harry!” he cries, pulling Harry into a quick hug before following the pygmy-snitch into a different room.

“Did you say ‘Arry?” Comes Fleur’s sharp voice, and then she’s standing there in the kitchen doorway, Bill shadowing her shoulder.

“Oh,” says Harry breathlessly, taking in the sight of her pregnancy, and Fleur beams, striding over confidently to kiss his cheeks delightedly, only pulling back when Bill drops his arms over Harry’s shoulders and pulls him into his side.

“Looking good, Harry,” says Bill, grinning, and Fleur nods approvingly at Harry’s hair. Percy comes breezing past, nodding at Harry and smiling widely, apparently in pursuit of Charlie.

“You must say hello to everyone, ‘Arry,” Fluer demands, pushing him towards the kitchen—“everyone ‘as been dying to see you—” he steps into the kitchen and there’s an immediate choked-off noise.

Molly Weasley is standing by the stove, one hand covering her mouth in shock, eyes wide with surprise. Hermione and Ron are leaning against the fridge, one of Ron’s arms draped over Hermione’s shoulders. Arthur was gesturing animatedly about something but as he catches sight of Harry along with his wife, he breaks off abruptly.

“Hi, Mrs Weasley,” says Harry shyly. “Mr Weasley.”

“Oh, Harry!” Mrs Weasley cries, and before he can even take a step forward, Harry is smothered by a hug, Molly’s cloud of red hair significantly below eye level—he hadn’t realised how much he’d shot up in height. “Harry dear, how _are_ you,” Mrs Weasley says, pulling back to clasp Harry’s cheeks and bend his head down a bit. She purses her lips into a smile, eyes teary, and says, “oh you’re looking so _well_!”

Harry laughs, and Arthur clasps a hand onto his shoulder, beaming—“Hello, Harry, it’s marvellous to see you,” while Molly tells Harry sternly “six months is far too long! Haven’t seen you in an age, dear, we all missed you something dreadful,” while Harry nods along. “Go on, then, say hello to everyone,” Molly allows after a few minutes, “cake will be ready soon—go on!”

Harry laughs again, and heads towards the back door at Ron’s head nudge. Before he can open it, the door swings open, and Ginny steps through. Her lips break into a wide smile, freckled cheeks dimpling.

“Hey, Gin,” says Harry, feeling a little bit like the breath has been knocked out of him.

“Heya, Harry,” she says back, and they’re hugging; her muscular arms squeezing him tight, his neck bent from the angle, her delighted laughter against his ear.

When they pull away, Harry says, “You look—really good.” The long hair she wore for years is gone, and it’s been chopped to just above her shoulders. Her skin is tanned and her eyes are light and she’s beautiful, like always, and glowing, like she wasn’t last year. She’s wearing a Gryffindor Quidditch shirt, cut into a crop top, with denim overalls that he think may have originally been Luna’s.

Ginny hasn’t stopped smiling. “You do too,” she says, fingers trailing along his face. “Was it good?”

“Yes,” says Harry, honestly. “I needed it. I feel—more whole, now. It’s so much easier to breathe.”

Ginny nods, once, sharp and decisive. Her eyes are satisfied. She leans up to press a kiss to Harry’s cheek, takes his hand in hers, and turns to face the door. Over her shoulder, she says, “come on, then—Luna and Neville are out back, and Angelina and George—oh George has been saying he thinks you’d be back a month from now, he owes me a galleon—and Oliver Wood’s stopped by, I think, and Lee promised he’d visit—did you know Parvati’s dyed all her hair?”

Harry lets Ginny pull him outside, into the sun, her words the best thing he’s ever heard, alongside the sound of a dozen voices calling _Harry!_ excitedly, and his heart is whole, and he’s ready for whatever comes next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no I've never been to London or New York or literally any of these places. yes I'm projecting. n-ee-wayz THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR COMMENTS!!!!!!! ilsym <3 feel free to request things!!

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave a review if you can!! if y'all have ideas or requests please lemme know <3
> 
> also YES I did in fact say "nice one harry" instead of "nice one james" and YES it was because the longer hair pushed Sirius into further distinguishing Harry and James in his mind, in fact finding further similarities between Harry and Sirius himself, of which there are many. yes it makes me very sad and yes I've been thinking about it for days


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